"Hi, you! where are you going?"
"Well, suh, boss," one of them answered, "we is goin' to de mill wid dis-heah plank."
"Plank? What plank? Where's the plank?" the foreman demanded.
The colored spokesman looked inquiringly and somewhat surprisedly at his own empty hands and those of his companion, whom he addressed good-naturedly:
"Now, if dat don't beat all, George! If we hain't gone an' clean forgitted dat plank!"
* * *
Two men met on the city street in the evening, and had a number of drinks together. The one who lived in the suburbs became confidential, and exhibited a string tied around a finger.
"I don't dare to go home," he explained. "There's something my wife told me to do, without fail, and to make sure I wouldn't forget, she tied that string around my finger. But for the life of me I can't remember what the thing was I am to do. And I don't dare to go home!"
A few days later the two men met again, this time in the afternoon.
"Well," the one asked, "did you finally remember what that string was to remind you of?"